The View from the Back of the Bike

Jorge Lorenzo

I’m way overdue for a blog post. I know this. The whole holiday weekend/start of the semester thing got in the way for a bit. I’m working on one that’s requiring quite a bit of research so it’s taking a while to piece it all together. (And by “research,” I really mean “zooming in on Google maps trying to figure out places F and I have been because so much travel time on the bike blurs together and I can’t for the life of me remember which northern Michigan town is which even though I can remember that somewhere in one of those towns is a bar that doesn’t take credit cards but cures its own Canadian bacon so it’s totally worth it.”)

So while I get those memory knots untangled, here’s a quick MotoGP update.

Take, for instance, the San Marino Grand Prix in Misano this past weekend. Rossi snatched the lead from Lorenzo early on and set the pace for the majority of the race — but then out of nowhere, Dani Pedrosa, who hasn’t had a win since 2015, worked his way up from 8th place, overtaking Rossi in the 22nd lap to win the race. I would have loved to see Rossi win, of course, but if he had to miss out, I’m glad it was to Pedrosa. This way Rossi still earned more points in this race than Marquez (who came in 4th) or Lorenzo (who took 3rd). Plus, it’s just nice to see someone else on the podium for a change, especially another rider who’s been at this for a long time and basically just seems like a nice guy.

Aaaaaand this is where I was going to include a video of race day highlights — but apparently MotoGP doesn’t like that sort of thing, so you’ll have to head to their YouTube channel if you want to see Pedrosa’s surprise overtake of Rossi at the 1:22 mark. Thanks, Dorna.

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We’d planned to go for a ride on Sunday. At least, until we stepped outside and the air already felt warm and soggy at 9 am. I think F was surprised that my response to his “I’m sorry, but I really don’t think I want to go” wasn’t disappointment (after all, he gets to ride a lot more than I do) but rather, “Nope. Me neither.” The thought of being outside in all that gear made me wilt a bit. This was definitely a day to stay indoors. (And hey, bonus! We didn’t end up in a tornado!)

So that afternoon found us somewhere we never are during the day: on the couches in my living room in front of the TV. I’d gone on a bit of an interlibrary loan frenzy at work earlier in the week, and a DVD of a MotoGP documentary was the first thing to arrive. “Yeah, okay, let’s check out the first few minutes and see if it’s any good,” was F’s response when I showed him the case of Fastest.